The article talks about how powerful Twitter is becoming in terms of social media and how it is being used more by nonprofits to engage stakeholders through tweets and communications methods specific to Twitter such as hyperlinks, hashtags, public messages and retweets.

Method

A content analysis of organizational tweets was conducted to determine whether Twitter’s communication tools were being efficiently being used by nonprofits.

November 8, 2009 to December 7, 2009

100 largest non-university affiliated nonprofits in the United States

73 were featured in the sample

4,655 tweets were double checked against the Twitter for 10 of the organizations

Five percent of the 4,655 sampled tweets were hand coded to verify computer accuracy

Results

37 percent operate in the field of public benefit

26 percent were healthcare organizations

18 percent were human service (non-health care) organizations

15 percent were from the arts and humanities sector

Two organizations were non-university educational groups

One organization was a religious groups.

The results of the analysis were based on

Who the organization was following on Twitter

The organization’s tweets

Its hyperlinks

Its public messages

Its retweets

Its hashtags

What is the issue?

Similar to the way that Facebook failed to use the engagement elements of the site , Twitter is proving to be another social media outlet made for relationship-building efforts that public relations professionals do not completely understand. Instead of using public messages to respond to other Twitter users or connecting to others by retweeting helpful messages, nonprofits are using the site to convey information using one-way communication.